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Hamilton tops second practice in Sochi

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in second practice at the Sochi Autodrom ahead of the Russian Grand Prix.

Hamilton posted a time of 1:39.630 on the soft option tyres to head the session from McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen by 0.864, with Nico Rosberg forced to settle for fourth, nine tenths down on his Mercedes team-mate and title rival after he ran wide at the final corner on his hot lap.

Fernando Alonso was fourth for Ferrari, the Spaniard separated from Magnussen by just a hundredth of a second, while Valtteri Bottas showed strong pace on the long runs late in the session to finish fifth fastest.

Jenson Button compounded McLaren’s good form from the morning session in sixth, ahead of Felipe Massa in the second Williams and local favourite Daniil Kvyat, the Russian eighth for Toro Rosso.

Sebastian Vettel was ninth fastest for Red Bull, while Daniel Ricciardo was confided to 13th after he stopped out on track due to a power unit failure, prompting a red flag, in the dying minutes of the session.

Jean-Eric Vergne rounded out the top ten for Toro Rosso, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Hulkenberg, 11th and 12th for Ferrari and Force India respectively.

Sergio Perez was 14th, two spots behind his team-mate, but ahead of Sauber’s Adrian Sutil and a disgruntled Romain Grosjean, beating his Lotus team-mate Pastor Maldonado to 16th by a mere hundredth of a second.

Esteban Gutierrez, who sat out opening practice to make way for Sergey Sirotkin, finished the afternoon session 18th for Sauber, a second clear of Caterham’s Marcus Ericsson, the fastest of the traditional backmarkers.

Max Chilton was 20th in the sole Marussia, while Kamui Kobayashi, who handed over his Caterham to Roberto Merhi for FP1, was 21st and last.